2022 AUSTRALIAN AGE CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Wednesday, April 13th – Monday, April 18th (able-bodied)
- SA Aquatic & Leisure Centre, South Australia
- LCM (50m)
- Live Results
- Livestream: Amazon Prime
We reported on the impressive swim by 16-year-old Flynn Southam in the men’s 200m free final here at the 2022 Australian Age Championships, but there were several other notable swims on day one of the able-bodied portion of the competition.
Competing in the women’s 200m freestyle for 15-year-olds, Hannah Casey scored a new national age record with her winning time of 1:58.49.
Opening in 57.27 and closing in 1:01.22, Marist College’s Casey logged the only sub-2:00 time of the field, knocking nearly 5 seconds off of her 2:03.37 baseline outing from prelims.
With her podium-topping performance, Casey’s 1:58.49 overtook the previous age record of 1:59.37 multi-World Junior Championships gold medalist Lani Pallister put on the books in 2018. Casey’s result here also surpasses the previous All Comers age record of 1:58.86 previously held by Marion’s Emily Liu.
In another women’s race, the 200m breaststroke, 13-year-old Olympia Pope fired off a new record of her own en route to grabbing gold.
Touching the wall in 2:31.71 to take her age group’s national title, Pope knocked a significant amount of time off of her own previous record, a time which stood at 2:32.61 from last December. In that previous PB-setting swim, Pope split 1:12.86/1:19.75 to crank out the best time of her young career before this evening.
Olympia Pope won the treble for 13 years girls breaststroke, winning the 50, 100 and 200.
3rd in 200 IM, 4th 400 free.
15 year old Marcus Da Silva just went 50.56 while leading off the 4×100 free.
Three 54s in the girls 15 year 100 free final!
54.30 Hannah Casey (#2 alltime in the age group behind Cate Campbell)
54.82 Olivia Wunsch
54.94 Milla Jansen
What a night in Adelaide, really sets the scene for a great week of racing. Interesting to see if they make the trek back down to Adelaide next month for trials? I imagine they would be in the hunt for Open National team selection with these times.
Unless there is sufficient funding, its hard to see too many of these age groupers making a 2nd trip.
Whilst these performances ARE, undeniably creditable; the reality is that only Southam is the only one of those highlighted who’s time is anywhere near “ball-park” for selection.
AUS has a veritable ruck of 1.56/1.57 200 free performers and Pope is around 5-6sec away from the 200brs mark.
Under normal circumstances, where Nationals and Age Nationals run near concurrently; a very strong case can be made for age-groupers like Casey/Pope gaining the valuable Open racing experience …… and possibly making B finals at that level. When they are a month apart …. and when you’re taking 2 travel and accomodation… Read more »
100% agree re: the month apart and the travel/accommodation expenses as well as annual leave for at least one parent.
Southam already said last year that his goal is a senior team this year so you’d think he’ll be at trials.
He just broke Chalmers age record . 48.60
Yep! Commented about it under the Southam post. I’m glad his hard work has paid off because he seemed a bit frustrated last year.
He’s certainly put himself in the likely mix for selection; even more so after his 48.62. The trio of sub 54s in the 15y 100free, especially Casey’s 54.30 certainly strengthens their case for starts at Open Nats/Trials.
Again, under usual circumstances; such a decision would be much easier. Having the 2 meets a month apart is, however, bringing a number of additional considerations into that equation. We’ll clearly see a quotient of Age groupers turning up; but most likely a smaller percentage than usual.